Although modern aircraft have multiple options for establishing air-to-ground data links during flight, there remain certain communications activities that may only be performed when an aircraft is on the ground. One current method for managing radios used for such communications is to enable or disable the radios based on the state of an interlock activated by one or more aircraft components. For example, the opening or closing of aircraft doors may be monitored by a sensor and used as a proxy to determine whether the aircraft is on the ground. Similarly, a weight sensor on an aircraft's landing gear can be used determine whether the full weight of the aircraft is on the landing gear, and also used as a proxy to determine whether the aircraft is on the ground.
One issue with these approaches is that regulating bodies continue to broaden the circumstance under which data can be transmitted using, for example, cellular or IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi) datalinks. Further, aircraft operators want to take advantage of the full window of time they have to exchange data between the aircraft's avionics systems and the ground based systems. Because turnaround times are fast, the time available for performing downloads and uploads while the aircraft is on the ground is a valuable resource. Therefore, aircraft operators want a more intelligent way of identifying when an aircraft is on the ground or airborne for the purpose of enabling these ground-use only datalink radios.
For the reasons stated above and for other reasons stated below which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the specification, there is a need in the art for improved systems and methods for aircraft on-ground determination.